


Time-Breaker

by TheVampireAuthoress



Series: Ego One Shots [2]
Category: Video Blogging RPF, jacksepticegos, jacksepticeye
Genre: Fanfic, Fanfiction, Flash Fic, Flash Fiction, Gen, One Shot, Random & Short, Sean McLoughlin Egos, Short & Sweet, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-15
Updated: 2019-08-15
Packaged: 2020-09-01 10:37:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20256742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheVampireAuthoress/pseuds/TheVampireAuthoress
Summary: An odd man with a lateness problem has a zombie escort quest.The second Ego one shot.





	Time-Breaker

Jameson was late, again, but this time it wasn’t his fault… not quite. You just can’t get this brand of hat anymore, pursuing it was the only option, he told himself as he kept a firm grip on it. In those elongated moments, the rhythm of the raindrops splashing and his feet hitting the ground seemed to be the only sounds in the city. He fished his pocket watch out of his waistcoat and tried to hold it still enough to read. Giving up, he dropped it back into his pocket next to a scrap of paper. He would have to apologise to his client for his tardiness.

Tardy described Jameson Jackson very well. Never the first one anywhere and often delayed on understanding jokes, though many times the first to tell them. His fashion was late and so were his mannerisms, but in a city such as this it was easily waved away. He was grateful for that.

He slowed as he reached again into his pocket. Drawing out the scrap of paper, he squinted at the barely legible scrawl. _Next to the dumpster - Carthage Street._ Carthage Street was close, or it had been the last time he was here. Following his foggy memory, he arrived with a suspicious lack of difficulty. With a name like Carthage, Jameson expected it to smell burning and salt, instead the stench of old garbage and urine met his nostrils. Towering blocks of sardine-can flats lined the street; a cat hissed in the darkness, startling him.

Against his better judgement, Jameson made his way down the passage; thin, artificial city light crawled around corners, trying to peek at the dingy scene. A bundle of scraps against the wall moved as he approached, both parties hesitant. Jameson’s footsteps echoed as he came closer until the figure sat up to face him. Their skin was so translucent it looked grey as it reflected the strangled streetlights, everything about the thin man was pale, aside from his hair. Thick and dark, slick with grease and possibly infested with something Jameson didn’t want to think about. A dull, barely cognisant recognition showed on his face.

“You… came?” Eyes, misty with early cataracts, shone with diluted hope.

Jameson forced his hands into slow but brief answers, “I’m late. Sorry.”

“Safe now?”

Jameson hesitated, “Yes.”

The figure shifted, standing on unsteady legs, grasping for Jameson’s gloved hands, which he gave. As he stood the pale form upright, a violent thumping came from the dumpster. Freeing his hands, he turned to the young man with scars on his face,

“What was that sound?”

“Bad man? Dinner?” Hungry eyes moved towards the sound.

Jameson decided not to ask what he meant. The young man swiped his striped sleeve over his mouth, wiping away a string of saliva. Glancing over the pile of scrap the man had been unearthed from, he seemed to have no personal effects. Odd, Jameson mused, distinctly odd. Finding no more reason to stay in an alleyway that reeked sweetly of rotting things, he gestured to his companion.

“Time to go.”

“W….wait,” the soft slur of speech spilled from trembling lips, “who’ll look after my rats?”

“I don’t know… but they will be fine.” he added as the milky eyes grew concerned.

“Where we goin’?”

“A better place.” Jameson really hoped he was right as he took his companion’s elbow and led him through the streets. The man’s slight stoop and shuffling gait made for slow going, so unbearably comparable to the movement of the earth’s crust that Jameson considered asking the man if he wished to be carried.

Instead he focused on getting a good look at his companion; his messy hair had a purple tint to it, hands with dirt-clogged nails played constantly with his ruined sleeves. Eyes dark with bruise-like circles around them were starting to close in tiredness.

“Have you been on the streets long?”

“Always.”

Jameson’s eyes narrowed in thought, but he said nothing, only stroked the strange man’s arm. The stench of decay had followed the man, clinging to his skin like ticks.

Wall after wall of dirty, graffiti-covered city block passed the pair, until Jameson began to recognise the neon signs and sharp corners as being close to his client’s meeting place, he checked his watch and drew in a sharp breath through his teeth at the state of the time. His companion turned at the sound.

“Nearly there.” Jameson soothed.

“You stay with me?”

Again Jameson hesitated,“No.”

The man’s eyes glistened wetly and, without a word, wrapped himself in a hug around Jameson’s midsection. Jameson tensed at the sudden, unexpected contact, but put a hand on his charge’s back.

“Come visit!” A muffled, teary voice pleaded.

He brought his arms into the grayscale man’s sight line.

“I will do my best.”

Jameson never made promises that weren’t contracts, signed by both parties, but he really did intend to keep this one.

Turning the last corner, someone in a long-sleeved shirt and beret was waiting for them, in the unlit street Jameson couldn’t see their face. Standing with his charge at the alley’s mouth, he waited for his heart to slow before moving his hands in speech.

“I apologise for my lateness.”

“Worry not, my friend, you are here now.” A thick, jovial french accent answered him. “And you have brought the young man. Good, good.”

Jameson nodded the stooping man forward, in his periphery, he noticed a door to his left swing into the house. The pale figure sniffed the air, unsure. His tentative, scuffing footsteps marked his ungainly movements. Jameson gazed at both figures, his client and his charge.

“Take care of him, please.” He signed, partly at his client, partly to the universe.

A smile twinkled in anonymity’s eclipse. “Of course we shall.”

As the shadow-toned beret wearer drew the pale man into the dark, towards the open doorway, Jameson noticed many pairs of glittering eyes staring out. He wondered how many washes it would take to get the smell out of his gloves as he made his departure.

The clouds overhead glowed an eerie hue of orange and brown, yellow lights and walls of dark brick passed him as he walked. Was it the light pollution or the peculiarities that happen around him sepia-toning the world? He wasn’t entirely certain.

Time breaks around Jameson. He isn’t sure why. Threads of ideas try to pull themselves together but they tangle when he tries to interfere. Minutes and hours slip away like fleeting laughter. Weeks. Months. Years. He loses track of everything and everyone, but nothing seems to change. An anomaly is he, Jameson decides. Never fitting in but never being overtly questioned, like a spare vigilante in a comic. Hero or villain; he wondered where that arc would take him, if he chose such a career trajectory.

A woman with a scarf around her face met him on a corner, a piece of paper in her hands. Fixing his monocle in his eye and smoothing his moustache, Jameson sighed and read the contents. Nodding and signing it, he disappeared down a dead end alley and didn’t come out.

**Author's Note:**

> Yay part 2!!
> 
> Again I don't know what this is, I guess it's because JJ seems so disconnected from all the other egos, he seems like a perfect go-between between canon and non-canon. Also I wanted to write the zombie boi and time anomalies... sue me!
> 
> Any constructive feedback you could give would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!  
I really hope you like it!! <3


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